Morgana Trilogy Complete Series

by Alessa Ellefson

  “Well, it’s been very nice meeting you,” I say, getting ready to leave, “but you’re evidently talking to the wrong girl.”

  “We do not have the wrong person,” Papillon bristles, “you look just like her! There’s no chance at all we wouldn’t recogmice Her Wisestness’s own daughter.”

  My breath rushes out. “What did you say?” I ask in a choked voice.

  “That we cannot be wrong,” Papillon starts.

  “No, not that, after.” I swallow audibly. “About my…mother.”

  Two pairs of large, liquid eyes blink up at me questioningly.

  “You mean you don’t know Danu’s your mother?” Papillon squeaks in surprise.

  The russet mouse pushes him away. “Of course not, cheese brain, or she wouldn’t have asked now, would she?” She twitches her dragonfly wings. “Poor thing, to not have known who her mother was all these years. Why, even the idea of Roquefort, Stilton, Taleggio, Brie, and Munster growing up without knowing how much I love them hurts my poor little heart!”

  Blood rushes from my face, and I drop back down into the snow. “You mean to say—” I whisper, the wheels in my mind revving up.

  “—that her loftiest-minded—” Papillon says.

  “—the Fey warrior you mentioned—” I continue.

  “—the Light Bringer herself,” Papillon adds with another one of his sharp nods.

  “—is my mother.”

  “The mighty Danu herself,” the russet mouse finishes.

  “But I thought my mother was Lucifer,” I say.

  “Lucifer is derived from the Latin Luciferus,” Papillon recites, his whiskers twitching meaningfully, “which means the morning star, Dawn-Bringer, she who delivers the light.”

  “And she sent us to you, sweets,” the russet mouse says kindly.

  This can’t be real. I must’ve been right earlier—this has got to be a trick of some sort.

  A soft breeze suddenly picks up, and I find myself basking in a warm glow, the scent of flowers and sun-ripened fields wafting through the air, surrounding me in a familiar, comforting cocoon. The same force that held me safe when facing Agravain that time he tried to kill me during practice, that shielded me against Carman, that healed me when I tasted death in the harpy’s talons.

  A chill snakes its way down my spine. I should’ve known. Deep down, I should’ve known who she was, even if she did abandon me.

  “Will you take me to her?” I ask.

  “Take you to whom?”

  I jump at Lugh’s sudden voice, and look back down, but the two winged mice have disappeared. My throat constricts at the thought of losing what could have been my one chance to meet my birth mother.

  “What are you doing?” Lugh asks again.

  “Just minding my own business,” I say, more sharply than intended.

  Lugh’s jaw tenses, golden eye straying to the verdant bush next to me. “Arthur thought you might need help finding your way back,” he says at last.

  I nod silently. Then, bundling Puck into my arms, I stand back up to look at the brooding Fey Lord. A part of me wants to ask him what he knows about Danu, if it’s true she’s my mother, and why she ever abandoned me and my brother.

  But Papillon was right about one thing. Lugh’s hiding something from me, and I need to find out what.

  Chapter 23

  “I’ll have your filthy head for that!”

  Oberon’s voice booms out across the circular entrance hall of Lugh’s Oak Tree, making everyone there cower in fear.

  “Ease up, Lord Oberon,” I hear Gauvain say, any trace of his usual mirth stamped out. “I am sure she meant no harm.”

  I hop onto a narrow staircase made of floating wooden disks to get a better view. Oberon’s fuming, his booted foot forcing a red-headed girl’s face into the floor. The girl lets out a soft whimper, her eyes rolling up beseechingly. I hiss out a breath as I recognize Marianne, the superstitious knight I once helped out at the infirmary.

  Across the hall is Gareth is swearing viciously, preventing from joining his cousin by a swarm of pixies. Lightning from his war hammer flashes along the high ceiling, singeing the red oak in long, crooked lines.

  Worry coils tighter around the gathered crowd. People and Fey alike are getting restless, and if nobody intervenes, it’s going to turn out into an all-out brawl.

  Brow lowered dangerously, Lugh leaves my side and cuts a path straight to the other Fey Lord. I jump off the floating step to follow along, but a shadow moves in front of me, stopping me in my tracks.

  “Let Lugh handle it,” Arthur says, grabbing my hand and leading me away.

  “But Oberon’s going to kill her,” I say, trying to pull free.

  “No, he’s not. Now for once in your life, stay put!”

  A part of me wants to punch him. The other, irrational part, is glad Arthur’s talking to me at all after what I said to him earlier, even if it’s to bark angry orders at me.

  There’s another thunderous crack, followed by frightened screams. My heart goes still, and Arthur reflexively draws me closer to him, his free hand going up to Excalibur’s hilt.

  “Have you calmed down, now?” Lugh’s chocolaty voice speaks up.

  My hands unclench from around Arthur’s arm as the tension eases slightly around the room. I can almost hear the collective sigh of relief.

  “Will you release the girl?” Lugh asks.

  I glance over the crowd at Oberon’s puckered face. “She offended me and my people, she needs to be punished for it,” he says. “I did not join your rebellion just to see these humans subjugate my kind to their whims. We are not slaves.”

  “I thought we had a truce,” Gauvain growls menacingly. “The deal was to fight side by side against Carman, and in exchange we promised to stop hunting your people down, just as you promised not to harm any human.”

  “Any human on our side,” someone adds.

  “I’ve just changed the terms of the contract,” Oberon says, eyes glinting dangerously.

  “You know very well that once a word is given—” Lugh starts.

  Oberon holds up a large ruby-encrusted ring. “These oghams do not belong to them!” he bellows.

  “How else are we to fight, then?” Gauvain asks, his biceps bulging as he crosses his arms.

  Oberon’s lips curl up into a smirk. “Why, however your kind managed before.”

  “He’s askin’ us to sign our death warrant!’ someone shouts.

  “We’ll never survive without the use of EM!” another adds.

  “So it’s OK for us to sacrifice ourselves to save your asses, but not the other way around?” Oberon retorts, flaring up again.

  From the strained look on his face, I can tell Arthur’s itching to intervene, but he doesn’t leave my side. I don’t know what’s happened, if it’s because he lost the KORT Presidency, or because of what his father’s accused of. But except for our little raiding party, Arthur’s pulled himself away from any leadership position. And I can tell it’s gnawing at him.

  “Considering our foes,” Gale says, appearing silently at their sides, “would you agree to our use of oghams when absolutely needed? We do not have the ability to restore all the Fey whose oghams are currently in use. And forcing us to fight the old way on such short notice, without proper training, is signing our own death warrant—no matter how much Nephilim blood flows in our veins.”

  There goes that strange word again. Nephilim. I’m apparently not the only one who’s confused by it, as shocked whispers rise among the crowd.

  Gale tilts his head to the side with a slight smile. “Although I’m sure that under your guidance,” he adds before Oberon can object, “we would progress towards it much quicker.”

  “What say you, Lord Oberon?” Lugh asks, cocking an inquisitive look in Gale’s direction.

  Oberon’s mouth snaps shut, as he considers the offer. “We could start with that,” he says slowly, “for I’ll be damned if I ever face that dragon on my own again.”


  At long last, he lifts his foot off from Marianne’s face, and Gauvain hurries to help her up. The girl’s face is purple, blood flowing freely from her broken nose, but she’s alive.

  “Come,” Arthur says quietly, pulling on my hand again.

  He steers me to the wall behind the floating stairs, and presses his foot on a low-hanging conk[97]. The heartwood unfolds outward, like the Apple Tree did back at Lake High, revealing another staircase in the soft light that emanates from thousands of glowworms moving inside the walls themselves.

  “What are Nephilim?” I ask as the doorway closes behind us.

  “The descendants of humans who procreated with the Fallen Ones,” Arthur says, not letting go of my hand.

  “You…you mean other people like me?” I ask.

  Arthur nods. “Because of their Fey blood, these Nephilim inherited their holy parents’ powers. But the ability to manipulate the elements got lost over the generations, though the purer bloodlines still exhibit some latent aptitude. A trait some families tried to maintain through inter-marriage.”

  I stop dead in my tracks, and Arthur stumbles at the sudden resistance.

  “You’re saying there are more knights out there who are like me?” I ask. “More like…Jennifer?”

  “We all are, to some extent,” Arthur says carefully.

  I shoot him a withering glare. “You’re saying that all these knights who mocked me and treated me like shit because of who my mother is, even tried to have me executed for it, are no better than me?” I take a deep, steadying breath. “How long have you known?”

  Arthur looks away. “It has been theorized—”

  “I’m not as stupid as Keva makes me sound!” I shout at him. “Why can’t you tell me the truth for once?”

  “I am telling the truth,” Arthur says. He closes his eyes, letting out a tired sigh. “Look, I don’t want to fight. Not with you. This theory has been debated for centuries, but fell out of favor during the Renaissance, and it isn’t until recently that it was brought forward again. Jennifer only confirmed my own doubts today.”

  His mention of Jennifer only makes my blood boil all the harder. But before I can protest further, Arthur leans against the wall, eyes closed, the glowworms’ diffused light hollowing his cheeks out and deepening the dark smudges beneath his eyes. I find myself unable to look away from him, eyes drinking him in, noting every new bruise, scar and wrinkle on his face, picking out the few white strands catching the light in his brown hair. Harsh imprints left upon him by this war.

  And all the anger drains out of me. In the end, what does any of this matter anyway? Arthur’s proven his trust in me over and over again, despite all my slipups, my own doubts, against the judgment of his own parents and friends, and even after I almost had him killed.

  My heartbeat picks up at the sudden need to touch him, the desire so strong I forget to breathe. All I want is to hug him tight until he feels better and those deep lines of worry are erased from his forehead.

  As if it senses my intent, Excalibur flashes once from its scabbard, and I find myself blinking just inches away from Arthur’s face. With a muffled gasp, I back up into the opposite wall, biting my lip hard. What is wrong with me?

  “Percy must’ve known,” Arthur says in the barest of whispers. “I think his berserker mode was his way to access his…abilities.”

  Arthur opens his eyes again, and I feel a stab of guilt at the raw emotion spilling from them. If Percy hadn’t been trying to help me, Dub would never have gotten his hands on him.

  “Yet he never whispered a word of it to me,” Arthur continues with a self-deprecating chuckle. “So I can’t blame you for feeling the way you do, when I know even my best friend couldn’t trust me.”

  “Was Percy’s line, uh, pure then, that he knew how to use his Fey powers?” I ask awkwardly, still unable to coach my heart into a regular beating pattern.

  “Not exactly,” Arthur says, eyes lost in his memories. “Not many know this, but that way of fighting only developed after his family was attacked at their home by a Fey servant gone rogue.

  “It happened long before he was knighted, and although he never talked much about the event, I think it must have shocked his system into using his own powers.” Arthur squeezes his hands into tight fists, knuckles going white. “That’s what made his parents lose it. They couldn’t bear the thought that their only son was one of them. And so they abandoned him.”

  Arthur rakes his hand in his hair, laughing self-deprecatingly.

  “And I was never able to do anything to help him,” he adds, voice breaking.

  This time, I don’t stop myself. The pain in his voice is too deep, exposing years of pent-up remorse, and finding an echo inside my own chest.

  I close the distance between us, and wrap my arms around Arthur’s shoulders. I feel him stiffen in surprise, then his arms snake around my waist to clutch me tightly to him.

  And there, in that deserted staircase, Arthur finally allows himself to cry.

  ◆◆◆

  We march in awkward silence down the tortuous hallway to Lugh’s Council Room. If I’d hoped letting Arthur cry on my shoulder would have made him open up to me more, I was dead wrong.

  If anything, he’s gotten worse over the past few days, nagging at me for every little thing. I know that the Board’s envoy has been a lot to handle, especially since the clumsy man has a tendency to provoke issues instead of assuaging them. And that Carman’s incursions—both in the surface world and throughout Avalon—have become harder to contain since our failed attempt to destroy the Siege Perilous.

  But if Arthur keeps this attitude up with me for much longer, I may just sock him.

  The floor shifts beneath our feet, turning into another twisted staircase that leads up to a curving door.

  Arthur pauses before opening it. “Remember to not—”

  “Say a word, I know,” I say, rolling my eyes at him. “I should be like Ella: Do as I’m told without a word of complaint.”

  Arthur presses his lips into a thin line at the mention of the Pendragons’ former Fey servant, nostrils flaring. We both know Dean killed her, but I still hold it against his family for not doing more to protect the Fey woman.

  With a shrug, Arthur manages to school his expression into a bored mask. “As long as you know,” he says, setting his hand on the triquetra[98] chiseled into the door.

  At his touch, the likenesses of the four elementals carved around the Celtic symbol shiver to life, then quickly scurry to the door’s corners, pulling the heartwood open behind them like a curtain.

  “Good morning,” I say loudly, pushing my way in past Arthur. “Hope everyone slept well.”

  I wave back at the cousins, then cross the room to stand next to Keva by the wall, like a proper squire.

  “We were just waiting for you,” Sir Dagonet says.

  The Board’s emissary motions for Arthur to sit on the giant mushroom stool growing out of the floor to accommodate him. Apparently, Arthur caused quite the stir back in Caamaloth while I was away, his quest to forge a new alliance with the Fey and reclaim Lake High ending in a rift between the Board’s two main parties—those in favor of working with the Fey, and those who chose to uphold the old ways.

  In the end, Keva told me, the latter prevailed, and tried to shame Arthur and his followers. They even petitioned to cross them out of the Order’s register, until they realized more than a quarter of their members were willing to lose their knighthood to follow him. At which point they recanted.

  Instead, they keep sending Sir Dagonet to keep an impartial eye on things down in Avalon. A constant thorn in Arthur’s side to remind him of his place.

  “Must you bring that girl to every one of our meetings?” Sir Boris asks Arthur, lounging to the man’s left. “For all we know, she’s a spy. Let’s not forget it’s because of that girl this war even started.”

  “I thought it was the other way around,” Gauvain says casually. “Us betraying our accor
d with the Fey, and her trying desperately to clean up centuries’ worth of our mess.”

  “Just like her father,” Gareth says, nodding emphatically.

  “And look where that got him,” Gauvain states. “It just shows prophets aren’t ever taken seriously until it’s too late.”

  “There’s no such thing as prophets and prophecies,” Arthur says in a cutting tone that makes me wonder if he’s thinking of Mordred right now. My brother’s been quite adamant about fulfilling some sort of prophecy, as if any divine message could ever condone his vile acts.

  “Are you quite sure about that?” Lugh asks, leaning against the knotted mullion[99] of the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks his territory.

  “Let’s get on with the meeting now, shall we?” Sir Dagonet says, dismissing Lugh with a wave of his hand. “I have some bad news to share with you.”

  “You mean more so than the worlds falling apart around us?” Oberon asks, with a little growl that makes Sir Dagonet jump.

  His notepad clatters to the floor, and he rushes to pick it up, blushing furiously. “The Board’s decided to stop funding your activities,” he says, looking down at his copious notes to avoid having to look at either of the Fey lords.

  “Out of the question,” Arthur says. “If we leave now, we risk losing all of Avalon to Carman, and our chance to close the Gates once and for all goes out the window.”

  “You’ve tried twice already, and failed both times,” Sir Dagonet says. “And the number of injured parties doesn’t cease to grow.”

  “So does the number of rescued,” Hadrian counters.

  “Not quite to the same degree,” Sir Dagonet says testily. “Besides, I heard the blood of our dead has been used to finish Carman’s wards around the school, wards meant to keep Hell’s Gates permanently opened.”

  “They haven’t succeeded,” Gareth says.

  “Nonetheless, the Board believes your activities are no longer justified,” Sir Dagonet intones. “Particularly when not even Excalibur was able to destroy the Siege Perilous. Which nullifies your latest argument for mounting yet another attack on Lake High, Sir Arthur.”